Delicious Pumpkin Soup - Vegan, High Carb, Low Fat.
What you’ll need
good sharp knife for cutting pumpkin
large soup pot
food processor, blender, vita mix, sick blender
When chopping – you don’t have to chop your onion and garlic really small since it will all get blended. You may wish to chop the rest of the vegetables into small chucks so they cook faster, try to make thepumpkin, potatoes, and carrots around the same size.
Olive oil for sautéing – this is optional, you can also steam sauté with just a bit of water or broth for a fat free soup.
1 large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic (it is ok to add more if you like a lot of garlic)
6 cups chopped pumpkin (you can peel it or not)
3 cups peeled chopped potato
1-2 large carrots chopped
**a pinch of habanero pepper (you could skip this if you don't like spicy)
5 1/2 cups vegetable broth
a good size pinch of nutmeg – fresh ground is always best
a teaspoon or so of lemon juice – fresh squeezed is always best
salt and pepper to taste
Cook the onion and garlic with the oil or broth on medium low until the onions are soft, but not browning. Add the pumpkin, potato, carrots, and pepper. Cover with a lid and sweat on medium low for 12 minutes or so. Typically sweating is done with a little bit of fat, if you opt not to use the oil to sautee this is still a great way to allow the vegetables to give up some of their natural juices early in the cooking. Add the broth and nutmeg and bring to a boil then reduce to medium low for about 20 minutes (this will really depend on the size of your chopping), until the veggies are all tender.
Let the soup cool a bit and add it to the food processor/blender and blend it up smooth. Transfer back to the pot and stir in the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
**Typically the soup has about 1/5 of habanero pepper and it seems to get even hotter the next day so if you don't taste enough spice maybe add a little black pepper or red pepper flake to your bowl and wait until the next day to add extra habanero.
Modifications:
You can use other heat sources – jalapeno peppers, red pepper flakes, chili peppers, etc – or you can leave them out entirely.
You can also use any other kind of winter squash.
For a complete meal you can add some small white beans either before or after you puree along with some cooked barley to the finished soup.